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Received: 3 March 2020 / Accepted: 16 June 2020 / Published online: 27 June 2020
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract
The current study presents the log analysis results from two vertical onshore wells in Al Baraka oil Field, Komombo basin,
upper Egypt. The Geophysical logs comprising gamma ray (GR), caliper (Cali), resistivity (LLD, LLS, and MSFL), photo-
electric effect (PEE), neutron (NHPH) and density (RHOB) are used to study the petrophysical characteristics of the main
identified reservoirs in this field. The key purpose of well logging analysis and interpretation is to obtain petrophysical
properties of reservoirs such as shale volume, porosity, hydrocarbon saturation, net pay thickness, etc., for hydrocarbon
exploration. Petrophysical analysis of well logs reveals that Al Baraka wells consist of three types of lithology: sand, shale,
and siltstone. The obtained results show that there are two hydrocarbon-bearing zones named (S-E) and (S-D) zone for
Al Baraka-4 well and Al Baraka-14 well, respectively; both had hydrocarbon reservoir bearing oil and lie in Six Hills Fm of
the Lower Cretaceous. The generated cross-plots showed that the main reservoir lithology is composed of shaley sand-
stone to sandstone. The computed petrophysical parameters for the identified and characterized reservoir layers reveal
that they have a total porosity range of 18.2–20.1%, water saturation of 57.7–36.6%, shale volume of 20–8.5% for (S-E)
and (S-D) zone, respectively. The hydrocarbon saturation reaches to 42.5% for (S-E) zone and 36.6% for (S-E) zone; both
hydrocarbons in these zones are movable. The net reservoir pay thickness is high in (S-E) zone reach to 24 ft. Below and
above the oil-bearing reservoirs, there is a thick shale bed which acts as potential source rock or as a seal rock. The overall
results indicated that the sandy reservoir units of ‘Al Baraka’ Field have the potential to contain significant accumulations
of hydrocarbon, essential oil. It is recommended to integrate more wells and seismic data to better evaluate the reservoirs.
Keywords Reservoir · Petrophysical parameters · Well log analysis · Hydrocarbon-bearing zones Komombo basin
* Ahmed H. Senosy, [email protected] | 1Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, New Valley University, Al‑Kharga 72511,
New Valley, Egypt. 2North Sinai Petroleum Company (NOSPCO), New Maadi, Maadi, Cairo 11931, Egypt. 3Geology Department, Faculty
of Science, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
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of these zones and to distinguish the interfaces of oil, gas, southwestern Desert of Egypt north of Aswan city and cov-
or water in parts of Al Baraka oil filed. ering area of 50 k m2, which is currently producing heavy
Based on the history of petroleum exploration and pro- oil from sandstone reservoirs. The main oil field, where
duction in Egypt, most of the hydrocarbon fields concen- most of Al-Baraka wells were drilled, is located approxi-
trated in three main regions: the Gulf of Suez, the North- mately 12 km West of Faris village Fig. 3. The oil of the Al
Western Desert, and the Nile Delta. Southern Egypt has Baraka field is believed to be generated from potential
only attracted separate interest since 1990 with success lacustrine shales (high thermal maturity and rich TOC%)
finally arriving by drilling within Komombo concession. In containing mixed terrigenous and marine organic matter,
2007, drilling of the Al Baraka-1 well was a success, and which was deposited in a moderately oxidizing sedimen-
there was establishment of the Al Baraka Field by Dana tary environment [3].
Gas Company [3]. Komombo Basin is an extensional rift
basin, which covers an area of 186 km2 in the southwest-
ern Desert of Egypt [4] Fig. 1a. Komombo basin is filled 2 Location map and geological setting
with a Cretaceous–Cenozoic sedimentary sequence,
which is underlain by the Pre-Cambrian basement rock. Al Baraka oil field occupies the eastern part of the
This succession is approximately reaches 4 km thick in the Komombo basin. It is located 800 km south of Cairo and
deepest parts (depocenter area) [5]. The topography of lies between latitudes 24° 38′ and 24° 40′ 30″ N, and lon-
the Komombo area, which lies west of Faris village and gitudes 32° 46′ and 32° 50′ 30″ E [6] Fig. 1b.
northwest of Aswan city, is relatively gentle to the almost
flat desert with no indications of the oil and gas activities 2.1 Location map of the study area
Fig. 3.
Al Baraka oil field is present in the eastern part of The study area is located in the south of Egypt in the east-
Komombo Basin Fig. 1a, b. This field is located in the ern part of the Komombo basin, where the discovered
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Al Baraka oil field is present. This field includes two wells Cretaceous and early Tertiary [7]. Stratigraphic boundaries
named Al Baraka-14 (Cg 78-14) and Al Baraka-4 (Cg 78-4). and lithostratigraphic sequences are based on wireline
Figures 2 and 3. logs lithofacies description, microscopic examination of
ditch cutting samples for drilled wells, and biostratigraphic
2.2 Regional geological setting analysis. The stratigraphic sequences of the komombo
basin are characterized by two major sedimentary breaks
Komombo basin is a half-graben system filled with thick (non-deposition or erosional phases), represented by the
non-marine sediments deposited during Early Cretaceous gap in time between the Pre-Cambrian Basement rock
(Hauterivian to Barremian) followed by marine deposition and the Neocomian sediments and between the Creta-
during Albian/Cenomanian (argillaceous sandstones and ceous sequence and the overlying Paleocene sediments
shales) and later shales and marine limestones during Late due to the regional uplift event on the area. Also, this
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3.1 Available data
The Wireline logs data for this study were collected from
Ganoub El Wadi Petroleum Holding Company. The avail-
able drilled boreholes are Al Baraka-4 and Al Baraka-14, Fig. 4 Stratigraphic column of Komombo Basin, upper Egypt (mod-
each well has main logs like gamma ray (GR), spontane- ified) [9]
ous potential(SP), caliper (CL), density(RHOB), neutron
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Fig. 5 a Un-interpreted NE–SW 2D seismic section (05-01-Cf 77-08) crossing the Komombo basin, Upper Egypt. b Interpreted NE–SW 2D
seismic section showing the half-graben basin and the main seismic horizons in the study area [13]
(NPHI), photoelectric effect (PEE), resistivity logs [deep to obtain water saturation. After obtaining water satura-
resistivity (LLD), shallow resistivity (LLS), medium resistivity tion, both oil and gas saturation can be calculated.
(LLM)]. These logs are used for calculating the petrophysi- The procedure for calculation of petrophysical param-
cal parameters as no core data is available; these logs are eters are as follows:
delivered as soft copies (Las files (as shown in Table 1. The
Techlog version 2015.1 and Petrel version 2015.5 software
was used to integrate all the available data to interpret 3.2.1 Lithology determination
and compute the input of the different petrophysical prop-
erties to deliver a more realistic and accurate formation The lithology identification is pivotal for reservoir char-
evaluation. acterization because all of the Petrophysical parameters,
such as porosity and permeability depend on facies type.
3.2 Methods Besides, fluid saturations directly depend on facies types
[15]. In this study, lithology across Al Baraka wells was
Generally, the wireline logs like GR, SP, and caliper logs identified by using gamma ray (GR) log, photoelectric fac-
were used for the correlation of depth and identification tors (PEF) Table 2. Cross-plots are used to define lithology
of permeable zones in addition to identifying the same and petrophysical parameters using different types of logs.
facies in the wells, which have a lack of core data. Porosity Neutron–density–gamma ray and also density–photoelec-
logs as (density logs, neutron logs, sonic logs) were used to tric effect–gamma ray cross-plots indicate lithology and
calculate porosity at each point. Resistivity logs were used porosity of the formation [1].
Table 1 The available open hole wireline logs and [surface temperature (ST), bottom hole temperature (BHT)] for the two studied wells
Well name Available well logs ST (DegF) BHT (DegF)
Al Baraka-4 GR, Caliper, BSZ, SP, RHOB, NPHI, PE, LLS, LLD and MSFL 80 160
Al Baraka-14 65 165
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Table 2 Photoelectric parameters for common lithology in sedi- quality. In this study, the volume of shale was estimated
mentary rock [16] using a gamma ray logs method as the following equa-
Lithology Sandstone Dolomite Shale Limestone Anhydrite tion [19]:
PEF value 1.8–2 3.14–4 1.8–6 5 5 IGR = (GR log −GR min)∕(GR max − GR min) (1)
barns/
electron where IGR = Gamma ray Index, GRlog = gamma ray reading
of the formation, GRmin = minimum gamma ray, maximum
density log reading, IGR = Vsh in the linear model.
3.2.2 Reservoir identification
The reservoir is the only zone, which is the potential for 3.2.5 Net to gross ratio (h/H)
economic interest because it contains storage space for
fluid (hydrocarbon or water) to accumulate. A good res- It is very important to determine net pay thickness to cal-
ervoir rock must be a good porous, permeable and con- culate original hydrocarbon in place. NTG is the ratio of the
tains hydrocarbon as well [17]. In this study, reservoir rock thickness of sand bearing hydrocarbon to the total thick-
was identified using the interpretation of the available log ness of sand formation [16]. It shows the volume of shale
data. The gamma ray log was used in the identification of present in the reservoir. Net reservoir thickness (h) can be
reservoir rock based on the fact that the sandstone res- calculated by using the following formula:
ervoir exhibits very low radioactivity because of the low h = H−hshale , (2)
content of radioactive elements. Resistivity logs were
also used in the sense that reservoir zones exhibit rela- where H = The gross reservoir thickness, hshale = The thick-
tively higher resistivity values than non-reservoir zones. nesses of the shale and Net/Gross = h/H.
Based on neutron and density logs, reservoir rock was also
marked by the presence of neutron–density crossover [1,
3.2.6 Porosity estimation
16].
Porosity is a very important parameter for the characteri-
zation of the reservoir rock as it is used to describe the
3.2.3 Fluid identification
amount of open space filled with fluid (hydrocarbon or
water). In this study, total porosity and effective porosity
It is very important to identify the interval zone and the
were calculated as the following:
type of fluid in the reservoir rock, because reservoirs may
contain hydrocarbon (oil and gas), non-hydrocarbon fluid
A. Total porosity calculation
(water), or both. For a reservoir to contain hydrocarbons,
so the zone should be porous with resistivity values higher
By the combination of neutron–density logs, the total
than those of water-bearing zones [18]. In this study, the
porosity within reservoirs interval was determined. The
resistivity log and neutron–density log were used to iden-
equation to compute the total porosity from neutron and
tify hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon-bearing intervals.
density logs that may be expressed as:
Hydrocarbons are poor conductors than water and hence
show higher resistivity than water-bearing intervals. 𝛷tot = (𝛷N + 𝛷D )∕2 (3)
Based on neutron and density crossover, the gas zone is
expected to show a wider negative separation due to low where ФN= Neutron porosity, ФD= Density porosity, which
density and low hydrogen index of gas, while the oil zone is calculated from this equation [20]:
is also expected to show relatively low negative separa- 𝛷D = (𝜌ma − 𝜌b)∕(𝜌ma − 𝜌f ) [18] (4)
tion because of relatively high density and hydrogen index
compared to gas. A very low separation also was observed where ρb: bulk density which includes both fluid and rock
in the water zone due to higher density and higher hydro- (read directly from the log), ρf: density of the saturating
gen index in water. fluid, ρma: density of the rock matrix, φ: porosity.
According to Baker (21), the criteria for classifying poros-
ity is as follows: ∅ < 0.05 = Negligible; 0.05 < ∅ < 0.1 = Poor;
3.2.4 Volume of shale (Vsh) calculation 0 . 1 < ∅ < 0 . 1 5 = Fa i r ; 0 . 1 5 < ∅ < 0 . 2 5 = G o o d ;
0.25 < ∅ < 0.30 = Very good, ∅ > 0.30 = Excellent [21].
Calculation of shale volume is crucial because it helps to
calculate formation porosity, fluid content, and overall rock B. Determination of effective porosity
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The effective porosity is usually based on an adjustment is a ratio of the uninvaded zone and flushed zone which
of total porosity by means of estimated shale volume. The estimated by the following equation:
equation to compute effective porosity may be expressed
as [22]:
Hcmov index = SW∕Sox (8)
where Sox = water saturation of the flushed zone, which is
�eff = �T − [�sh ∗ Vsh] (5)
calculated from this equation ( Sxon = (a * R
mf )/(φm * R
xo))
where ∅eff = effective porosity, ∅ T = total porosity, [23], a = tortuosity exponent, n = saturation exponent,
∅sh = porosity reading in a shale zone, Vsh = Shale volume. Rmf = mud filtrate resistivity at formation temperature,
φ = porosity, m = cementation exponent, Rxo = resistivity
3.2.7 Water saturation calculation of the flushed zone.
Water saturation can be defined as the ratio of water vol- 3.2.10 Net pay
ume to pore volume. It is calculated by porosity and resis-
tivity logs. Determining water saturation is crucial because Net pay thickness is the most important factor to calcu-
hydrocarbon saturation can be calculated from water satu- late hydrocarbon in place calculations because it affects
ration. In this study, Archie’s model is used to calculate the reservoir management and reservoir productivity. Table 3
water saturation of the reservoir rocks. To calculate water shows the applied cutoffs in this study.
saturation from Archie’s model, the following equation was
used [23]:
Table 3 The applied cutoffs for Categories Vsh Vsh and porosity Vsh, porosity and
net pay calculations water saturation
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Fig. 6 The interval depth with the Composite log response and lithology interpretation of the hydrocarbon-bearing zone (S-E) in Al
Baraka-4 well
Table 4 Summary of two sandstone main reservoir zones identified from well logs data
Well name Main reser- Type of reservoir Type of hydrocar- Zone name Thickness (ft) Formation name Photoelectric
voir internal lithology bons effect value range
(ft) (b/e)
in the S-D zone Figs. 10 and 11 and shaley sandstone in part. The average total and effective porosity results
S-E zone Figs. 7 and 8. The reason for categorizing the two of the delineated in S-E and S-D reservoir zones range
sand units as two different potential reservoir zones were from 14.3 to 17.1% and 18.2 to 20.2%, respectively. The
based on eliminating thick shale beds between reservoirs average shale volume estimated from the gamma ray
and low value of deep resistivity so as to reduce the effect log was found to be 0.20 (v/v) and 0.085 (v/v) for S-E
of both increasing shale volume and high-water saturation and S-D, respectively. The calculated value of average
when computing other petrophysical parameters. water saturation from the arhi equation is 57.5% for
S-E and 36.4% for S-D. On the other hand, we used the
4.2 Quantitative analysis average water saturation values to estimate the value
of hydrocarbon saturation, which is ranged from 42.5%
The two reservoir zones have been selected across Al for S-E and 63.6% for the S-D zone; these hydrocarbons
Baraka wells interpretations lie at depth interval from have movability index low than 0.7 and is between 0.58
4377 to 4451 ft for S-E zone and from 4962 to 4973 ft and 0.61. After applying cutoff in Table 3, the net pay
for S-D zone with thicknesses ranging from 74 to 10 ft, thickness range from 8ft for the S-D zone to 24 ft for the
respectively, Figs. 6 and 9. The two selected zones were S-E zone. All petrophysical parameters estimated for the
analyzed quantitatively to estimate the values of shale hydrocarbon-bearing zones and net pay are shown in
volume, porosity, and water saturation, net pay by using Tables 5 and 6 and Figs. 12 and 13.
empirical formulas as described in the methodology
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Fig. 7 Density–neutron–gamma ray cross-plot of the main reservoir (S-E zone) in Al Baraka - 4 well
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Fig. 8 Density–photoelectric effect-gamma ray cross-plot of the main reservoir (S-E zone) in Al Baraka-4 well
Fig. 9 The interval depth with the Composite log response and lithology interpretation of the hydrocarbon-bearing zone (S-D) in Al
Baraka-14 well
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24
8
name (ft) volume Porosity Water robon
(v/v) (v/v) satura- saturation
tion (v/v) (v/v)
0.583
0.615
S-E 8 0.083 0.199 0.279 0.721
6 Conclusion
Avg shale
0.1429
0.1711
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Fig. 10 Density–neutron–gamma ray cross-plot of the main reservoir (S-D zone) in Al Baraka -14 well
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Fig. 11 Density–photoelectric effect–gamma ray cross-plot of the main reservoir (S-D zone) in Al Baraka -14 well
Fig. 12 Digitizing of calculated petrophysical parameters of the main reservoir (S-E zone) along the Al Baraka-4 well
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Fig. 13 Digitizing of calculated petrophysical parameters of the main reservoir (S-D zone) along Al Baraka-14 well
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